Ourika

“The privileges of knowledge have to be bought at cost of the consolations of ignorance.”

It is Ourika’s experience that knowledge brings suffering. Her education and grooming prove only to be ornamental: In reality, they separate her from other black people of her era and make her a point of intrigue and curiosity among her white associates. Becoming aware of her blackness brings great suffering.  

“I reached the age of twelve without its once occurring to me that there might be other ways of being happy besides mine. There was nothing to warn me that the color of my skin might be a disadvantage. I saw very few other children. I had only one friend of my own age and my dark skin never meant he did not like me.”

Because of the relative inclusivity of Mme de B.’s salon, Ourika spends her childhood shielded from the horrors of slavery and systemic racism. The people around her do not acknowledge her blackness, so she does not recognize it as anything that might separate her from her society. 

“I was to represent Africa. Travelers were asked for advice, books of costumes were ransacked, and learned tomes on African music were consulted. At last a comba—the national dance of my country—was chosen. My partner covered his face in a mask of black crepe, a disguise I did not need. I say that sadly now. But at the time, it meant nothing to me.”

This passage illuminates Ourika’s problematic treatment, reminiscent of European orientalism—a fascination with the East and the exotic “other.” She is alienated from Senegal yet made to represent it for a white audience. Her unnamed partner performs in blackface, an offence that she does not register at the time as derogatory due to her social ignorance. 

“‘I see the poor girl alone, always alone in the world.’” 

Mme de B.’s words echo the book’s epigraph by Lord Byron, “This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!” (1). Ourika is a liminal character, excluded from her fellow Africans due to her education and not included in French aristocratic society due to social inequality. The words are prophetic—and all the more cruel coming from the woman Ourika worships. 

“‘To whom do you propose marrying her? With her intelligence, with the education you’ve given her? What kind of man would marry a negress? Even supposing you could bribe some fellow to father mulatto children, he could only be of low birth. She could never be happy with such a man. She can only want the kind of husband who would never look at her.’”

The marquise highlights both Ourika’s racial dilemma and the era’s gendered expectations. Young women were expected to be married off to an eligible bachelor; however, there is no such bachelor for Ourika. Ourika would not be satisfied with an uneducated black man or a non-aristocratic white man. She has the refinement of a white, aristocratic woman without the privileges.  

“‘To have made her happy I’d have had to try to turn her into a common servant. I sincerely believe that could never have been done. And who knows? Since she’s too remarkable to be anything less than she is, perhaps one day she will rise above her fate.’”

Mme de B. does not believe that Ourika is “suited” for servitude—one of the only roles besides slavery typically available to black people in 19th-century France. Thus, she appears to acknowledge that the social construct of racism is unnatural even as she argues the opposite. Putting the impetus on Ourika of “rising above her fate”, Mme de B. exonerates herself from any culpability or responsibility.

“‘Reason may help people overcome bad luck. But it’s powerless against evils that arise from deliberately upsetting the natural order of things. Ourika has flouted her natural destiny. She has entered society without its permission. It will have its revenge.’”

In the marquise’s words, Ourika’s internalized racism is society’s revenge. The novella attempts to portray Ourika’s life as a tragedy even as it defends the French aristocratic society that makes it so. It is Mme de B. who has allowed Ourika to “enter[] society without its permission” (14). Ourika’s tale is a cautionary one, though it is dangerously close to defending racial inequality rather than condemning it.

“‘My face revolted me, I no longer dared to look in a mirror. My black hands seemed like monkey’s paws. I exaggerated my ugliness to myself, and this skin color of mine seemed to me like the brand of shame. It exiled me from everyone else of my natural kind. It condemned me to be alone, always alone in the world. And never loved!’”

Once Ourika’s blackness becomes a marker of “otherness” and separation, she begins to turn the racism of French society inward.  

“Besides, I couldn’t help remarking the ridiculousness of the men who were trying to control the course of events. I perceived the smallness of their characters, I guessed their real philosophies. I soon stopped being the dupe of their false notion of fraternity. Realizing that people still found time, in all this adversity, to despise me, I gave up hope.”

The French Revolution, with its ethos of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, initially gives Ourika hope for her societal status as a black woman. However, as the Revolution becomes increasingly bloody, her idealism fades, and the hypocrisy of a country that champions equality yet owns slaves becomes apparent. Ourika is disabused of the notion that Enlightenment rationalism will liberate her.

“The Santo Domingo massacres gave me cause for fresh and heartrending sadness. Till then I had regretted belonging to a race of outcasts. Now I had the shame of belonging to a race of barbarous murderers.”

Ourika refers to the 1791 slave revolt that led to liberation of the Haitian people (though France would continue to enslave black people in other parts of the world). Previously, Ourika viewed blackness only in terms of negation of whiteness. But now she views her blackness in association with barbarism, further aligning herself with white society.  

“I don’t know if I would ever have dared to admit the extent to which this irredeemable stain of my color had made me miserable. There is something humiliating in not knowing how to tolerate the inevitable.”

The novella equates race with fate, as if the color of one’s skin determines destiny. This is very much against the Enlightenment ideals upon which the French Republic is founded; however, at this point in de Duras’ book, the Revolution has not yet started. The monarchy and aristocratic system are rooted in a deterministic worldview that values the circumstances of birth over the merit of one’s accomplishments.

“But our evening conversations rarely forced me to think of myself. I tried to do so as little as possible. I had removed all the mirrors from my bedroom, I wore gloves all the time, and dresses that hid my neck and arms. When I went out-of-doors I put on a large hat with a veil. I even wore it indoors frequently. In this way I wretchedly deceived myself. Like a child, I shut my eyes, and supposed myself invisible.”

Now that she’s internalized society’s racist worldview and sees herself as inferior, Ourika hides from the gaze of white society. Because skin color is a visual marker of race, she falsely believes that she will not be treated as black if she is not seen as black. Ironically, nothing has changed about her situation other than her own perception of it; the other characters treat her the same way they always have.

“Naturally the presence of a black woman enjoying the close confidence of Mme de B. had to be explained. These explanations martyred me. I should have liked to be transported back to my native land and its savage inhabitants—less frightening to me than this merciless society that declared me guilty of a crime it alone had committed.” 

Ourika’s presence in a society that fundamentally rejects her demonstrates a kind of usurpation of the “normal” power dynamics. This puts her behavior under intense scrutiny. Even if she were to be transported back to Senegal, she would still stand out: her attitude, upbringing, and behavior are decidedly French. Ourika is thus a victim of a double alienation; this is the crime her society has committed against her.

“‘Exactly like yours and mine!’ That phrase cut deep. It reminded me that Charles ignored the solitary secret of my life. At the same time it took away my longing to tell him of it.” 

Charles is speaking about the trust he wants in his relationship with Anaïs, a trust like the one he has with Ourika. But his connection with Anaïs separates him from Ourika. Though he knows her better than anyone, he cannot comprehend the alienation of being black in a white aristocracy. 

“Why did the world care whether I lived? Why was I condemned to exist? Unless it was to live alone, always alone, and never loved. I prayed God not to let it be like this, to remove me from the face of the earth. Nobody needed me, I was isolated from all.”

As her isolation increases, Ourika wishes for death. In praying to God, she diminishes her agency even further by relinquishing any possibility of rising above her situation. She consigns herself to the grave: This fatalistic attitude emphasizes her lack of control over her life.

“In my heart I carried a seed of death, even when outwardly I seemed full of life. I still enjoyed conversation, argument made me lively. I had even retained a kind of artificial sense of humor. But I’d lost all touch with real happiness. In a word, until then I’d been stronger than my troubles. But now they had become too strong for me.”

Ourika’s decline is a Romantic trope that links physical health with the health of the heart. Emotions such as grief, guilt, and despair were all thought to have a direct physical effect on the body. As Ourika feels more alone and alienated, her vitality diminishes. Though she finds happiness at the convent, her health has been irreparably damaged.  

“I was to pass through this world like a shadow; but in the grave I would find peace.” 

Ourika’s resignation to her solitude ironically serves to resurrect her vitality. She is willing to suffer through the injustices of the world in the hope that she will be rewarded in the afterlife. This foreshadows her later religious commitment that causes her to join the Ursuline convent where the doctor finds her.  

“Why did it matter that I might now have been the black slave of some rich planter? Scorched by the sun, I should be laboring on someone else’s land. But I would have a poor hut of my own to go to at day’s end; a partner in my life, children of my own race that would call me their mother, who would kiss my face without disgust, who would rest their heads against my neck and sleep in my arms. I had done nothing—and yet here I was, condemned never to know the only feelings my heart was created for.”

Ourika’s despair is so deep that even slavery seems a better alternative destiny; however, she romanticizes the slave’s life. 

“‘I have no secret, Madame. You know very well what my problems are. My social situation. And the color of my skin.’” 

These are the words Ourika speaks to the marquise when the woman inquires after Ourika’s distress. The passage highlights Ourika’s alienation from those around her; she has become so focused on her own racial identity that she believes the dilemma it poses is as evident to the people around her as it is to her.  

“‘All your misery, all your suffering comes from just one thing: an insane and doomed passion for Charles. And if you weren’t madly in love with him, you could come perfectly well to terms with being black.’”

The marquise refuses to acknowledge that Ourika’s grief is due to French society’s limitations on black people. Instead, she blames unrequited love, a tired and easy romantic trope to fall back on. That contention not only belittles Ourika’s experience, it also painfully ignores the fact that it is Ourika’s race that prevents any possible romantic union with Charles. 

“‘This happiness was in your own hands, since our happiness lies in doing our duty. I wonder if you have ever known your duty, let alone performed it. God is the purpose of man. Yet what has your purpose been?’”

The priest suggests that Ourika’s behavior during her illness is self-indulgent and irreligious. Instead of turning her soul and actions toward God, Ourika turns inward and wallows in self-pity. Like the marquise, he too ignores the social injustice of her situation and blames her, rather than French society, for her despair. Nevertheless, Ourika is convinced and turns toward a religious life that helps heal her emotional scars.  

“A nun, I told myself, may have renounced everything, but she is not alone in the world. She is a mother to the orphan, a daughter to the aged, a sister to all misfortune.” 

Equating the role of nun to the domestic roles denied her, Ourika reclaims some of what has been stolen by her social standing. Ironically, though her confessor attempts to turn her away from what he views as selfish grief, it is for selfish reasons—motives of self-preservation—that she turns to the convent. 

“Perhaps God, in casting me into this alien land, wished to bring me to Him without my knowing. He rescued me from savagery and ignorance. By miracle of charity He stole me from the evils of slavery and taught me His law.”

Ourika echoes the myth of the benevolent colonizer that was frequently used to justify European colonialism. The myth holds that colonialism brought non-European cultures education, medicine, and (Christian) religion—all of which were pillars of Western society—but it ignores the violence and horror that colonialism also brought. Ourika internalizes this belief.